The Withings Smart Kid Scale brings new advancements to parents who want a way to track the weight and growth of their new-borns and toddlers

Paris, France – January 16, 2013 – Withings, pioneers of Internet connected devices, announces the US availability of its Internet connected baby and toddler scale, the Withings Smart Kid Scale. Withings has combined cutting edge technology and exquisite design to create a scale that will give parents a simple to use and extremely accurate way to monitor, understand and share their child’s growth using the power of the internet.

The Smart Kid Scale is the ideal device to help parents start their kids off on the right track to a future long-term healthy lifestyle. Obesity affects 17% (approximately 12.5 million) of all children between the ages of 2 and 19 in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Also according to the CDC, this number has tripled since 1980. These numbers are a true indication of the importance of parents monitoring and tracking the weight of their children at an early age- even from infancy.

Cédric Hutchings, Co-Founder of Withings says: “With the Smart Kid Scale, we’re hoping to bring the same positive outcomes we’ve seen in adults with weigh tracking to the adults of the future. We’ve made it very simple for parents to track the weight progress of their children and therefore giving them a tool that will assist in turning their children into healthy adults.”

The Smart Kid Scale has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, which allows for the instant transfer of data measured by the scale to be sent directly to the Withings Baby Companion application. By using the Withings Smart Kid Scale and accompanying application, parents can access the history of their child’s weight readings. Also, parents can easily communicate the progress of their child’s weight with their doctor, pediatrician, family and friends.

In addition to storing weight data, the Withings Baby Companion app has been designed to allow parents to capture other important data and keep track of milestones. Users can log the child’s height and see how he/she compares with other children of the same gender and age. The app also allows parents to keep track of feedings. Breastfeeding parents can log when the last feeding was, which side the baby fed from and how long the feeding was. Parents using bottles can keep track of bottles and ounces.

The Smart Kid Scale can be used from infancy to eight years old. The scale features a large graphical screen for animations and instructions, a button that allows parents to easily record their baby’s height, and a compact design. The scale comes with a two-piece interlocking baby basket that is inserted into the scale’s base and is used to weigh infants. The bi-fold design is perfect for storage and travel. Once the child grows out of the baby basket and can stand up on his/her own, the basket can be removed to reveal a toddler scale.

The Smart Kid Scale joins the wide range of Withings devices and applications that are aimed to both adults and children, such as the Smart Baby Monitor.

Withings provides an open API to allow third party service providers to retrieve readings recorded by the Smart Kid Scale, and thus offers parents additional services and guidance to monitor their child’s growth.

The Withings Smart Kid Scale is available from Withings.com and other retailers for $179.95. The Withings Baby Companion app is available for free from the App Store at itunes.apple.com.

About Withings

Withings is an innovative company that creates smart products and apps to help people across the world easily take care of their health and well-being. Founded by French executives Cedric Hutchings and Eric Carreel, Withings has been pioneering Health 2.0 since the launch of their first Wi-Fi Body Scale in 2009 and is leading the way of the connected health movement. By extending the capabilities of an object through network resources, Withings provides access to infinite computing and storage facility at no extra cost, turning objects into smart connected devices. Since 2009, Withings has extended those benefits to a wide range of lifestyle friendly devices including the Smart Body Scale, the Smart Blood Pressure Monitor and the Smart Baby Monitor. By connecting through appliances such as mobile phones and computers and opening up its platform to the well being ecosystem, Withings now works seamlessly with over 60 partner apps and devices, providing users with a whole new dimension to their day-to-day life. Read more about Withings on www.withings.com.

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 10 blogs containing over 8000 articles with John having written over 4000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 16 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and LinkedIn.